The present invention relates generally to communications networks, and more particularly, to a method and system for facilitating provisioning of networks to support different classes of traffic.
Packet networks, such as the Internet, are increasingly used to transport voice as well as data. Although using a common network infrastructure to transport both voice and data potentially offers significant cost advantages, network providers have not been able to provide a consistent quality of service (QoS) for voice communications over the Internet.
Unlike data communications, voice communications require timely reception of packets at a receiver in a network to achieve an acceptable QoS. This requires consistent low packet delays and losses in the network. Existing Internet Protocol (IP) networks including the Internet, however, generally do not provide consistent low packet delays and losses because they maximize the use of network resources through a statistical multiplexing method, which is suitable for best effort traffic, but not for real-time applications, such as voice.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has attempted to solve this problem by implementing the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) and Integrated Services. However, the RSVP and Integrated Services have failed to gain widespread acceptance because they require networks to maintain a per-flow state in network routers. Currently, IETF is considering a Differentiated Services effort to provide individual mechanisms for enabling different classes of traffic in a network. This method, however, does not provide an enabling methodology for use by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in provisioning their networks to achieve a consistent QoS when transporting voice over their networks.